Reap what you sow....

[Brooothru]

So. My son is quite fond of hot stuff. My wife blames me because I let him try some hot salsa one time when he was just a toddler while we were living in Texas 42 years ago. In any event, he really likes the endorphin rush that comes from things containing copious amounts of capsaicin. Fast forward to a few years ago. Flying Dog Brewery came out with a peppered beer called "Carolina Reaper" which coincidentally was flavored with Carolina Reaper peppers. For those unfamiliar, Carolina Reaper is HOT!!!, as in off the charts. Scoville Heat Units (SHU) are a measure of a pepper's heat. Habarnero peppers are between 100,000-350,000 SHUs. Ghost peppers are around 1,000,000 SHUs. Carolina Reapers are 1.4M-2.0M SHUs. You seriously have to wear culinary gloves (at a minimum) to even handle these things. They leave Thai Hots and Scotch Bonnets in the dust.

In order to make this beer palatable, Flying Dog back-sweetened with peach flavoring, so you get the sweet with the heat. The brewery no longer makes the Carolina Reaper, but they do make a 7 pepper brew that has become quite popular. I'm a fan of heat, but not particularly in my beer. However I did decide to attempt to brew a similar beer for my son for Father's Day this year. Since I don't want to melt a keg by using Carolina Reaper, I came up with a blend of pepper varietals that include Poblano (1,000-1,500 SHUs), Anaheim (500-2,500 SHUs), Fresno (1,500-10,000 SHUs), and Habanero (100K-350K). I covered roughly 3 oz. of seeded and deveined pepper flesh in a Mason jar with 4 fl. oz. of Everclear to make a tincture. It's been marinating for a little over a week. I picked up a 4 fl. oz. bottle of peach flavoring at the LHBS and I'm ready to blend into a 5 gallon batch of either light lager or APA, both of which have been brewed and conditioned/lagered.

What I need is some advice or suggestions of how much of each flavoring should I use. The only times I've added "stuff" to my beers were either orange peel or coriander to a holiday spiced ale, so I'm flying blind here. The only guidance I get from reference reading is to "add to taste." I realize that I can always add more if needed, but I need some help to at least find a starting point. If anybody out there has experience or suggestions, please feel free to offer up some advice.

Brooo Brother

 

[Snuffy]

I've never brewed beer with peppers or back-flavored anything either. I have had a porter brewed by a friend that retained a noticeable heat and pepper flavor after having dried chilis added in the secondary using a hop bag. I did not get the specifics of how much or how long because it was more a novelty thing IMO and wasn't something I was willing to waste beer experimenting with. Good luck!

 

[day_trippr]

The low risk path is to experiment with the hot stuff v peach stuff on a half-glass of beer scale, perhaps using a store-bought example of what you've brewed if you don't want to sacrifice any of that. Ideally use a small marked syringe, then you can linearly scale the additions to 5 gallons...

Cheers!